


Pink Checkered Shirt

by Juliet_Capri



Series: Home Sweet Home [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Board Games, Grief/Mourning, Multi, Pining, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8370085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juliet_Capri/pseuds/Juliet_Capri
Summary: Before the fall, Steve felt jealousy, he felt happiness – though only briefly – and he felt like he had a family, no matter how small it was. Steve had his mother, the Barnes’, and most of all Bucky. They would understood Steve. The family Steve built around him understood who he was and loved him no matter what. They were his everything and losing them – all of them - killed him. With them gone, he became empty, different. He was the slightly off one; the one not quite like the rest. It was though he was jigsaw that had its pieces switched; not quite the same and in some cases unrecognizable.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Steve is very depressed in this fic. If this is a trigger for you then I urge you to skip this installment of the "Home Sweet Home" series. If you would like a brief, non graphic description of this story you can find one at the end of this work.
> 
> On another note, I would highly suggest reading the other two fics in this series before this one. They can stand on their own, but this one would need a lot of explaining to be fully understood
> 
> All mistakes are my own and as I have no bete, there will be quite a few. I will happily accept your comments, questions, thought, concerns and inquiries in the comment section below! Please enjoy!

“How that fuck is that even possible!” Clint yelled at seeming no one, “How can anyone win sixteen rounds in a row? The whole point in this came is that it’s all chance!”

Steve just shrugged, he didn’t know why he won. He never really cared for board games when he was growing up; never had the time, money or drive to play them. In the future, Steve found that they offered a great sense of satisfaction. Monopoly, the game Clint was so upset about losing, was easy and simple. Steve would simply buy the properties he landed on that were in the middle of the board and then slowing over time would add and grow his properties until he would bankrupt anyone who landed on one.

Steve’s favorite game was Trivia Pursuit, though. Unlike Monopoly, the trivia game required knowledge rather the strategy. As Steve became more and more aware of the world he lived in, the better he got. In many areas he was better than the other players as he had just read about Princess Diana’s wedding or Bruce Springsteen’s first album. All the trivia was fresh on the mind and he felt excited – a feeling he rarely got – when he was asked a question on something he knew. It felt good to know things; to know seeming useless knowledge just for the sake of knowing.

Dr. Martin, his therapist and confidant, told him that the pleasure he felt probably stemmed from the control knowing gave him. Steve didn’t know how true that was; the other place where he felt I control scared him. While being in the field gave him complete control over himself, he was constantly fearing for his comrades lives on missions. The soothing sounds of the engine couldn’t remove the sense that he’d fail when he first rode his bike again. He was always halfway to a heart attack when he went to visit Peggy even though her dementia made her always forget Steve. He was in complete control of their conversations and yet he still feared them.

Dr. Martin said that all those reactions were healthy; Steve, again, didn’t believe her. He saw them as weaknesses, things he needed remove in order to be normal. So, he took on more and more responsibility and took on more control. He pushed himself on missions and in the gym to take back his body; he got a cat to take on the control of another life; and ended up with a growing number of young SHEILD agents that went to him for advice. All this was apparently good, seeing as Dr. Martin almost smiled when Steve told her this. That made Steve happy. If he proved that he was ok to Dr. Martin, then he could convince the rest of the world. He could be alone again; his constant sense of fear could go back to being a constant feeling of resignation; he could deal with resignation he had for almost three decades.

Steve just wished he hadn’t said anything about Bucky. Since that first day, Dr. Martin has tried to get Steve to tell the tale of Bucky Barnes. He can’t, though. He still has dreams of Bucky’s warm scent; still cries for him when no one is around; his Sunday candle is always light for Bucky. If he told Dr. Martin about Bucky – he would be giving her his deepest secret, his only vice. He knows it was pointless to still be morning; Dr. Martin would most likely frown in that way that means longer, more tedious sessions if she ever saw what he did when he was alone.

She still asked. “What was Bucky like?” She tired during Steve’s forth session.

“Perfect.” He replied. He then proceeded to only give one word answers to her questions.

During his eighth session she tried a different approach; “And what did you do for fun, Steve?”

“Go to baseball games; play baseball; sometimes kids would race down the street to the barber shop at the end of the block.”  
“And you would join them?”

“I couldn’t my lunges would be to weak or everything else wrong with me would keep home, away from anyone.”

“So you spent a good deal of your time alone?”

“Not completely.”

“So, who did you spend the most lime with?”

“Bucky.”

“And what did you two do instead of the the more physical activates that other kids were doing?” Steve just shrugged and looked out the window until Dr. Martin wanted to talk about his cat. He adopted it soon after he started therapy, at her suggestion. She got distracted when he talked about the present and how he was “making progress.” It was because of that conversation that Steve was taking extra care to memorize the details of his Monopoly game with Clint.

The cat – a short haired Siamese named Franky – was laying in his lap while Steve bankrupted Clint for the seventeenth time. Natasha was sitting next to Clint at the table, acting as banker while laughing at Clint’s distressed face. She – unlike Clint – had long since learned that Steve was good at board games. He always won; Tony called it creepy. Steve just thought it was another thing that showed how different he was. He didn’t get references, he never got sick, he was both a young man and unusually old, and had an apparent gift for board games. It made him feel like an outsider. He couldn’t understand his peers on social, physical, or even an emotional level. His situation isolated him from the world leaving him truly alone.

Steve bared that too. He pretended and laughed at Clint’s outrage. He smiled when Bruce got him tea and acted like he was proud of the meaningless wins he received. Some days, he thinks he is proud; but others, he doesn’t feel anything. He wants to feel better, he wants to feel something again, but all that’s left of him after Bucky fell.

Before, he felt jealousy, he felt happiness – though only briefly – and he felt like he had a family, no matter how small it was in the end. Steve had his mother, the Barnes’, and most of all Bucky. They would spend evening together and see each other throughout the day. They did something that none of the Avengers or agents at SHIELD could do; they understood Steve. The family Steve built around him understood who he was and loved him no matter what. They were his everything and losing them – all of them killed him. When they left, he became empty, different. He was the slightly off one; the one not quite like the rest. It was though he was jigsaw that had its pieces switched; not quite the same and in some cases unrecognizable.

His colleges and “friends” at SHIELD didn’t notice the change. They never knew the old picture, so the new picture was normal, Steve was whole. They couldn’t see the cracks. As a result, they tried to set Steve up on dates to help him “get back in the swing of things.” Steve complied as to not have a “intervention” again.

He went on dates with beautiful women who knew who he was. They’d smile shyly and speak in soft, sweet voices. He went on dates with beautiful women who had no idea who he was. They were more real; their voices were excited and happy, their smiles genuine and questions evaluating. He once when to a show with a slender man. Steve had a hard time calling the experience a date, though. The two spent the entire time bickering and teasing in ways that more reflected his time with Bucky instead of any of the dates he or Bucky ever went on.

He knew none of them would ever result in anything. He just wanted to be alone; free from the pressure of his peers and free to hurt the way he always did. He was going to tell Dr. Martin this; maybe she would have agreed with him for once and say he wasn’t ready to date yet. He was, until he got to the office for his weekly appointment and was greeted by Brandon. Brandon was Dr. Martin’s receptionist and a fourth year college student working on a bachelor’s degree in Psychology.

Steve had been becoming friends with Brandon through the weeks of his therapy. The younger man would always greet Steve by name and treat him to a short story of the last week. Steve loved how normal Brandon was. He went to school, work and home; never venturing outside of his comfort zone, but still managing to experience the most bizarre situations. Steve would respond with small, completely normal stories of his own always leaving out that they happened over 70 years ago.

The Brandon before Steve on that day, though, was not the normal college kid in his crisp button downs and khakis, but a half-naked man with perfect abs and smooth tan skin. He was frantically patting his stomach with a cloth. He was muttering a few curses, but soon looked up and saw Steve. “Mr. Rodgers!” Brandon exclaimed, “You’re early.”

“The bus was ahead of schedule.”

“Oh, you take the bus?”

“I’m not a big fan of diving in the city.”

Brandon smiled nervously and began digging through his desk draw, “I’m so sorry you had to see this, I had a coffee accident and I – well, I’m letting you see it all aren’t I?”

The dark haired man chuckled and pulled out a pink checkered button down from the bottom right draw of his desk. He put it on and buttoned it while explaining to Steve that Dr. Martin would be down soon.

Steve smiled and thanked him. He sat down and pulled out the copy of a Harry Potter book Natasha had given him for his first Christmas in the Future.

**Author's Note:**

> DESCRIPTION: Steve plays a few games with Clint. Winning the games, Steve feels as though he is too different from his colleagues to ever be understood. He goes to therapy and sees Brandon, Dr. Martin's secretary half naked do to an unfortunate coffee accident. 
> 
> If you have anything you would like to tell me, please do in the comments below! Have a wonderful day!


End file.
